"Clutch" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... have it? The Koh-i-Noor' in his clutch (and a knowledge of its value) could not have given him more thrilling rapture. He was speechless with amazement; Maisie, thrilled too, realized that a word spoken would have rung false. The boy ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... of the clutch, carburetor, valves, magneto, spark plug, differential cam shaft, and different speed gears, and be able to explain difference between a two ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America
... specimens of feminine character generally were. They had a readiness with their hands that reminded me of Molly Seagrim and other heroines in Fielding's novels. For example, I have seen a woman meet a man in the street, and, for no reason perceptible to me, suddenly clutch him by the hair and cuff his ears,—an infliction which he bore with exemplary patience, only snatching the very earliest opportunity to take to his heels. Where a sharp tongue will not serve the purpose, they trust to the sharpness of their finger-nails, or incarnate a whole vocabulary of ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... roared Rufus Cameron, making a clutch for the document. But before he could reach it Nat was at a safe distance. Our hero glanced at the paper, to make certain that it was the right one, and then put it in his pocket, ...
— From Farm to Fortune - or Nat Nason's Strange Experience • Horatio Alger Jr.
... branch directly between them, passing a few feet over it. Before it could slip back again, and fall off, the young hunter had grasped it; and with the dexterity of a packer, double-knotted it around the limb. The next moment, and just as the great claws of the bear were stretched forth to clutch him, he slipped off the branch, ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid
... babyish, for a muscular man over six feet to show so many signs of pain. I think that from some cause, the surgeon felt vindictive toward him, and that his subordinates took their cue from him. When I went to give him lemonade, he would clutch my hand or dress, look up in ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm
... in the presence of these ghastly eyes, there came a voice, as if from afar,—"Read on!"—so consonant with the tone of my emotions, that I looked to see the figure itself take speech, until Mac, with a gasp, resumed. Still, as he read, the nightmare-spell possessed me, till a convulsive clutch upon my arm roused me, and instinctively, with the returning sense, ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various
... there was coming a curious scrambling and scraping noise, as of a desperate thing imprisoned in this box of thin wood. The King threw away his cigar, and jumped on to the table. From this position he saw a pair of hands hanging with a hungry clutch on the top of the fence. Then the hands quivered with a convulsive effort, and a head shot up between them—the head of one of the Bayswater Town Council, his eyes and whiskers wild with fear. He swung himself over, and fell on the other side on his face, ...
— The Napoleon of Notting Hill • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... a hill with the second speed clutch on when a grating sound came to my alert ears, and with it an unnatural shudder of the machinery. I threw off power and applied the brakes. As the car stopped the deep rolling bass of the thunder ...
— John Henry Smith - A Humorous Romance of Outdoor Life • Frederick Upham Adams
... leaping backward, he struck this cross heavily with his sword wrist. His glove did not save him from being jarred and bruised; and, for a moment, he relaxed his firm grasp of his sword, and before he could renew his clutch I could have destroyed his guard and ended the matter; but I dropped ...
— An Enemy To The King • Robert Neilson Stephens
... held Peter and John.' The timidity and helplessness of a lifetime made him hold fast, even while, walking and leaping, he tried how the unaccustomed 'feet and ankle bones' could do their work. How he would clutch the arms of his two supporters, and feel himself firm and safe only as long as he grasped them! That is faith, cleaving to Christ, twining round Him with all the tendrils of our heart, as the vine does round its pole; ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... element of character which enables a man to clutch his aim with an iron grip, and keep the needle of his purpose pointing to the star of his hope. Through sunshine and storm, through hurricane and tempest, through sleet and rain, with a leaky ship, with a crew in mutiny, it perseveres; ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... officer, who was not accustomed to ladies' society, and felt rather nervous at his own loquaciousness, kept his eyes fixed on his boots, and did not notice the deathly pallor of Mrs. Agar's face, nor the convulsive clutch of her fingers on the ...
— From One Generation to Another • Henry Seton Merriman
... at once brutish, terrible, Homeric; the fellow's reserves of strength seemed immense; sheer animal rage drove him; he ran amuck with lust to kill. He beat, rushed, strove to close. His opponent's lithe body evaded a clutch that might have ended the contest. John Steele fought without sign of anger, like a machine, wonderfully trained; missing no point, regardless of punishment. He knew that if he went down once, ...
— Half A Chance • Frederic S. Isham
... to see my dance order?" He made a defensive clutch at his pocket as if she had, and quick colour swept into his cheeks. She watched it, and watched it fade, leaving his face tired and sullen, and too old ...
— The Wishing Moon • Louise Elizabeth Dutton
... around, trying to escape from Collingwood's clutch, and saw Irving. The smile faded from Irving's face; Westby looked at him sullenly for a moment, then broke away and made ...
— The Jester of St. Timothy's • Arthur Stanwood Pier
... by it; still frightened by it. For a moment he had felt himself caught in the clutch of some power over which he had no control. That was the startling truth that stood out most prominently. He had been like one intoxicated—he who never before in his life had lost a grip upon himself. That fact struck at the very heart of his whole philosophy of life. Always normal—that ...
— The Triflers • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... was checked suddenly by a sound which rose out of the farther end of the corridor and made her start and clutch her father's arm. Joe pressed his face against the bars and looked along at his fellow prisoner, who was dragging his tin cup over the bars of his cell door with ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... of my friend's face change, and felt his hand clutch my arm even more tightly than he had done before. I stopped abruptly and looked round at him. He did not turn his head towards me, but, gazing still into the looking-glass, ...
— Mugby Junction • Charles Dickens
... as everybody knows; and Abner Briggs, Junior, was one of that kind. He remembered how he had floored Master Weeks, and he had just "spunk" enough left in him to try to repeat his former successful experiment on the new master. He sprang at him, open-handed, to clutch him. So the master had to strike,—once, but very hard, and just in the place to tell. No doubt, the authority that doth hedge a schoolmaster added to the effect of the blow; but the blow was itself a neat one, and did not ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various
... clamour on all sides redoubles, all the separate noises seem to confound themselves in one ceaseless roar, like the working of a million of hammers on a million of anvils. I can scarcely bear it; my hands clutch the door-posts convulsively. I lean out as far as I can, but see nothing but a company of soldiers preceded by two gendarmes, who are entering the Court. They stop before the door of the house. Several of them go in, and then I hear the sound of a door suddenly opened ...
— Paris under the Commune • John Leighton
... rascally inclinations. I first came to this conclusion one early morning, several years ago, as I watched an old crow diligently exploring a fringe of bushes that grew along the wall of a deserted pasture. He had eaten a clutch of thrush's eggs, and carried off three young sparrows to feed his own young, before I found out what he was about. Since then I have surprised him ...
— Ways of Wood Folk • William J. Long
... long strides like leaps, and bounded with a hop, skip, and a jump right into the wet basin, when the men set up a wild cry as, to the horror of all, they saw the little sailor's feet glide from under him, his hands thrown up wildly to clutch at something to save himself, and then he seemed to glide down the narrow well-like hole ...
— Mother Carey's Chicken - Her Voyage to the Unknown Isle • George Manville Fenn
... pal!" said Steve, who was braced there for the expected strain. "Don't worry about us, for we'll back you up. Get a clutch on him, and the rest is going ...
— Afloat on the Flood • Lawrence J. Leslie
... clutch, the Pelz limousine drew up between an aisle of bales, its door immediately flung open. First, Mr. Pelz emerging, with an immediate arm held back for Mrs. Pelz. Last, Miss Pelz, a delightful paradox of sheer summer silk and white-fox furs, ...
— Humoresque - A Laugh On Life With A Tear Behind It • Fannie Hurst
... cheeks, even a yellow spot, and a green spot, and a blue spot, [W.2722.] and a purple spot. Seven jewels of the eye's brilliance was either of his kingly eyes. Seven toes to either of his two feet. Seven fingers to either of his two hands, with the clutch of hawk's claw, with the grip of hedgehog's talon in every separate ...
— The Ancient Irish Epic Tale Tain Bo Cualnge • Unknown
... I was badly "rattled"; I knew by the clutch of Sylvia's hand that she was too. But here I got a lesson in the nature of "social training." Some of the bright colour had faded from her face, but she spoke with the utmost coolness, the words coming naturally and simply: ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair
... A powerful clutch closed upon his arm. He was whirled backwards into a chair. For a moment he was too dazed to grasp what had happened. He saw zu Pfeiffer's face. The sentries over his moustaches quivered like a row of fixed bayonets. The eyes seemed needle points. Then ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle
... close at hand," said Peter. "Will any one pass a rope round my waist? I am sure I could clutch him." ...
— The History of Little Peter, the Ship Boy • W.H.G. Kingston
... looked triumphant and grim. Nick fairly writhed in that iron clutch, and his face had assumed a sickly sallow color; while his eyes reminded Hugh of those of a hunted wild animal at bay, fear and defiance struggling for ...
— The Chums of Scranton High at Ice Hockey • Donald Ferguson
... from all the others in her life was because it was the last day that they had their mother with them. That night the old pain came again, just for an instant, but long enough to stop the beating of the brave heart which would never feel its clutch again. ...
— Mary Ware's Promised Land • Annie Fellows Johnston
... torture of the clutch of terror at her heart as she moved by Gerald's side through the impossible adventure! Who was this rash, mad Sophia? ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... minglement of a groan and a scream, and in an instant I was enveloped in a white, wet cloud of sheets, pillowcases, tablecloths, and underwear. Some of the things stuck so close to me, and others I grabbed with such a wild clutch, that nearly all the week's wash, lines and all, came down on me, wrapping me up like an apple in a dumpling—but I stopped. There was not anything in this world that would have been better for me to run into than those lines ...
— Pomona's Travels - A Series of Letters to the Mistress of Rudder Grange from her Former - Handmaiden • Frank R. Stockton
... than this followed. It was not very long before the opium nearly lost its power to excite and enliven, though it still kept an inexorable clutch on every fibre of my frame, and I was compelled to take it daily to keep the very current of ...
— The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day
... relic broke down in a fit of coughing. No sooner had he recovered than he leaped into the air, making a frantic clutch at ...
— The Fiend's Delight • Dod Grile
... thought you had courage sufficient to have taken such decided measures, after keeping on terms with the man so long. When he spoke of justices and warrants, you looked so overawed that I thought I felt the clutch of the parish-beadles on my shoulder, to drag me to prison as ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... special shawl, though old. It was red, and the bright color seemed to take the child's fancy; he was never so good as when playing upon the gay old rag. His black eyes would sparkle, and his tiny fingers clutch at it, when the mother put it about him as he swayed in Abel's courageous grasp. And then Abel would spread it for him, like an eastern prayer carpet, under the shadow ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... admiration, had flanked the little island, and now in the deeper water formed in ranks and squadrons, and, with their great goggle eyes like port-fires burning, lay ready to dispute the passage. Armed with such weapons as they could clutch, the men dashed into the water with paeans and shouts and the broken pitchers of fallen Jericho. The violet phosphorescence lighted them on their way, and tracked with luminous curve and star every move of the enemy. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various
... ez he said dat, he felt hisse'f slippin', an' dat made him clutch on ter Po' Nancy Jane O, an' down dey bof' went tergedder kersplash, right inter ...
— Diddie, Dumps, and Tot • Louise-Clarke Pyrnelle
... almost extravagant comedy on the subject of the garden had presented me irresistibly in the light of a victim. Like all persons who achieve the miracle of changing their point of view when they are old she had been intensely converted; she had seized my hint with a desperate, tremulous clutch. ...
— The Aspern Papers • Henry James
... tones firm but slower than before, with a pause here and there, yet in the end summoning his forces to a last flood of impassioned words. Then he sat down, not straight, but falling just a little on one side and making a clutch at his neighbour's shoulder; and while they cheered he sat quite still with closed eyes and opened lips. "Has he fainted?" ran in a hushed whisper round the room; Dick Benyon sprang from his chair, a waiter was hurried off for brandy, and Lady Richard observed ...
— Quisante • Anthony Hope
... a cannon, and the three rows of reef-points slatted against the canvas like a volley of rifles. Harrison, clinging on, made the giddy rush through the air. This rush ceased abruptly. The halyards became instantly taut. It was the snap of the whip. His clutch was broken. One hand was torn loose from its hold. The other lingered desperately for a moment, and followed. His body pitched out and down, but in some way he managed to save himself with his legs. He was hanging by them, head downward. ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... suffering, no matter what the circumstances might be, but on this occasion the power of resistance deserted me entirely and I gave vent to a howl, of rage like the bellowing of a maddened bull, and partly arising, endeavored to clutch the throat of the unfeeling beast at my head, but too weak to accomplish my purpose I fell back into the tub exhausted. At the same time the orderly took hold of my own throat and almost strangling ...
— Born Again • Alfred Lawson
... turn away? Too long I've guessed at some dread mystery I may not hear: and in my restless dreams, Night after night, sweeps by a frantic rout Of grinning fiends, fierce horses, bodiless hands, Which clutch at one to whom my spirit yearns As to a mother. There's some fearful tie Between me and that spirit-world, which God Brands with his terrors on my troubled mind. Speak! tell me, nurse! is she in heaven ...
— The Saint's Tragedy • Charles Kingsley
... long. He was an object of horror and repulsion to the people upon whom he had brought this awful calamity, and so fierce was their scorn of the traitor to Islam that the story is told of a Moorish girl in the clutch of the soldiers, who, when the restored King of Tunis sought to save her, spat in his face; anything was better than the dishonour of his protection. Hasan pretended to reign for five years, but the country was in arms, holy Kayraw[a]n would have nothing to say to ...
— The Story of the Barbary Corsairs • Stanley Lane-Poole
... from his convulsive clutch, I jumped into the tender, and paddled rapidly to the yacht. I gave Mr. Waterford a wide berth, and left him trying to obtain a better vision of the surroundings. I leaped upon the deck of the Marian, ...
— Desk and Debit - or, The Catastrophes of a Clerk • Oliver Optic
... It was a poor gift, you think, this of the labour of a life for so plain a duty; hardly heroic. She knew it. Yet, if there lay in this coming labour any pain, any wearing effort, she clung to it desperately, as if this should banish, it might be, worse loss. She tried desperately, I say, to clutch the far, uncertain hope at the end, to make happiness out of it, to give it to her silent gnawing heart to feed on. She thrust out of sight all possible life that might have called her true self into being, and clung to this ...
— Margret Howth, A Story of To-day • Rebecca Harding Davis
... back to that!" I cried, jumping up. "I'll sooner earn a precarious livelihood by turning fisherman in this island! Any labor will be preferable to that daily renewing torture." I seized my violin in a desperate clutch, and feverishly leant over the wall, where I could hear the dirge-like boom of the ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... Easy, but suppose they find all that money, they take boat and go away with it. Now, I hab them in my clutch—stop a little." ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Captain Frederick Marryat
... right in plain sight. He had failed because his mind was so full of Grandfather Frog and Longlegs that he forgot to look around, as he usually does. Just skimming the tops of the bulrushes he sailed swiftly out over the Smiling Pool and reached down with his great, cruel claws to clutch Grandfather Frog, who sat there pretending to be asleep, but all the time watching Longlegs and deep down inside chuckling to think how he was ...
— The Adventures of Grandfather Frog • Thornton W. Burgess
... tank 6 feet in diameter and 13-1/2 feet long, of a capacity of 3,000 gallons; an air tank of same dimensions as the water tank, holding air under 150 pounds pressure; a 10 horse-power gasoline engine, direct-connected, by means of friction clutch, with an air compressor and also with a triplex pump of 75 gallons capacity ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume V (of VI) • Various
... the greater part of the thirty miles has to be travelled at a foot's-pace the guide took advantage of the soft grassy track which leads out of Hilo, to go off at full gallop, a proceeding which made me at once conscious of the demerits of my novel way of riding. To guide the horse and to clutch the horn of the saddle with both hands were clearly incompatible, so I abandoned the first as being the least important. Then my feet either slipped too far into the stirrups and were cut, or they were jerked out; every corner was a new terror, ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... are the rules which my friend Demetrius bids him who would make progress in philosophy to clutch with both hands, never to let go, but to cling to them, and make them a part of himself, and by daily meditation upon them to bring himself into such a state of mind, that these wholesome maxims occur to him of their own accord, that wherever he may be, they may straightway be ...
— L. Annaeus Seneca On Benefits • Seneca
... spinning, spontaneously, like a little wind. Under her arm she held a distaff of dark, ripe wood, just a straight stick with a clutch at the end, like a grasp of brown fingers full of a fluff of blackish, rusty fleece, held up near her shoulder. And her fingers were plucking spontaneously at the strands of wool drawn down from it. And hanging near her feet, spinning round upon a black thread, spinning busily, like a thing ...
— Twilight in Italy • D.H. Lawrence
... Hildegarde shivered again, and held her lantern tighter, remembering how Bubble had said that the glen was "a tormentin' spooky place after dark." She looked fearfully about her as a low wind rustled the branches. They bent towards her as if to clutch her; an angry whisper seemed to pass from one to the other; and an utterly unreasoning terror fell upon the girl. She stood for a moment as if paralyzed with fear, when suddenly the little dog gave a sharp yelp, and leaped up ...
— Queen Hildegarde • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... under branches and at others got overboard, and standing in water and mud, lifted it over logs. They were in the deep gloom of a jungle from which the thick growth above shut out nearly all the light. As they pushed the canoe forward, unseen vines seized their throats in a garroting clutch, while solid masses of spider-webs stuck to their faces and spiders the size of a saucer ran over them. As Johnny sat in the bow, he collected the most spiders, since Dick only got those which his companion managed to dodge, but then Johnny was used to the critters and didn't ...
— Dick in the Everglades • A. W. Dimock
... hereditary master of the hangar, and Miss Annette Kellerman in charge of the swimming-pool. I am not denying that such a castle is easier to enjoy before the air has been squeezed out of it by the horny clutch of reality, which moves it to the journey's end and sets it down with a jar in its fifty-foot lot, complete with seven rooms and bath, and only half an hour from the depot. But this is not for one moment admitting ...
— The Joyful Heart • Robert Haven Schauffler
... wanted to see, anyway, Janice, before school," Stella said, as the younger girl hopped into the tonneau and the chauffeur let in the clutch again. ...
— Janice Day, The Young Homemaker • Helen Beecher Long
... anywhere, in short, far or near—he could only never take himself back. That certitude—that this was impossible to him even should she wait there among her plushes and bronzes ten years—was the thing he kept closest clutch of; it did wonders for what he would have called his self-respect. Exactly as he had left her so he would stand off—even though at moments when he pulled up sharp somewhere to put himself an intensest question his ...
— The Finer Grain • Henry James
... Seamen, whom no danger's shape could fright, Unpaid, refuse to mount their ships, for spite Or to their fellows swim, on board the Dutch, Who show the tempting metal in their clutch.] ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... topcoat he will make to last another year, and I do not say he will not smoke, but a cigar will now leave him unmoved. Yes, and if he gets a chance to do an extra piece of writing, between 12 and 2 A.M., he will clutch at the opportunity, and all that he saves, he will calculate shilling by shilling, and the book he purchases with the complete price—that is the price to which he has brought down the seller after two days' negotiations—anxious yet ...
— Books and Bookmen • Ian Maclaren
... did the inhabitants perceive the 'War Sprite' and the 'Dreadnought,' than they began to throw up defences and remove their valuables into the interior. It was in the highest degree irksome to Raleigh to wait thus inactive, while this handsome Spanish colony was slipping from his clutch, but he had been forbidden to move without orders. After three days' waiting for Essex, a council of war was held on board the 'War Sprite.' On the fourth Raleigh leaped into his barge at the head of a landing company, refusing the help of the ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... greater glory of God and man's promise of a reward in another life, of which we wot but little and that little not scientifically authenticated. He wanted the great, all-compelling, omnipotent Present, with its gifts that he could clutch in his fierce hands or draw to his hungry heart. To hell with the future. He reflected that misers permit their thoughts to dwell upon it and die rich and despised, leaving to the apostles of the Present the enjoyment of the fruits of ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... sat a skeleton—found as we saw it—with its neck in the clutch of the garrote, which was one of Ecelino's more merciful punishments; while in still another cell the ferocity of the tyrant appeared in the penalty inflicted upon the wretch whose skeleton had been hanging for ages—as we saw it—head downwards ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... had not fled; I had brought back the body; I had handed over the property. But how did that help me? It would only suggest that I had yielded to a sudden funk after killing my man, and had no nerve left to clutch at the fruits of the crime; it would suggest, perhaps, that I had not set out to kill but only to threaten, and that, when I found that I had done murder, the heart went out of me. Turn it which way I would, I could see no hope of escape by this ...
— The Woman in Black • Edmund Clerihew Bentley
... Southern Pacific would lose its early clutch on the throat of our commerce, an hundred thousand voters would escape from political bondage—its paralyzing grip would be weakened, if not broken. There was deadly issue ...
— How Members of Congress Are Bribed • Joseph Moore
... unable to move or to utter a syllable. With staring eyes they beheld the Prince and his companion advance, and pass through their very midst, whilst they remained powerless to so much as stretch out a hand to clutch at ...
— The Shadow Witch • Gertrude Crownfield
... his hind feet and rushed to meet poor Wunny, squeezing him in a terrible embrace that checked the Chinaman's yell instantly. Until a touch of Bruin's teeth upon his thinly clad shoulder and a bite of sharp teeth awoke it again. A clutch of his queue from the great paw brought forth greater shrieks and seemed to give the victim an extraordinary strength. By some means he wrenched himself free and escaped, the grizzly pursuing on all fours again—and both headed ...
— Dorothy on a Ranch • Evelyn Raymond
... Back next year," I shouted cheerily as the driver threw in his clutch and the car ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... by his side at night her arm stole about his, as if to clutch him, fearful lest in the empty reaches of sleep he might escape, lest his errant man's thoughts and desires might abandon her for the usual avenues of life. Long after he had fallen into the regular sleep of night, she lay awake by his side, her eyes ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... touched, but not by them; invisible hands touched me. Once I felt the clutch as of cold soft fingers at my throat. I was still equally conscious that if I gave way to fear I should be in bodily peril; and I concentrated all my faculties in the single focus of resisting, stubborn will. And I turned my sight from the Shadow—above all, from those ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... writers said) when the winter changed the time of its appearance. The like might befall Markheim: the solid walls might become transparent and reveal his doings like those of bees in a glass hive; the stout planks might yield under his foot like quicksands and detain him in their clutch; ay, and there were soberer accidents that might destroy him: if, for instance, the house should fall and imprison him beside the body of his victim; the house next door should fly on fire, and the firemen invade him from all sides. These things he feared; and, in a sense, ...
— Short Stories Old and New • Selected and Edited by C. Alphonso Smith
... man was clawing in through the door, Jack let in the clutch, slamming the gear-lever from low to high and skipping altogether the intermediate. The big car leaped forward and Hen bit his tongue so that it bled. Behind ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower
... dragged it off. Lola clapped both hands to her eyes, and reeled and tottered to the wings, where I saw a man's two arms receive her. The last thing I saw was Quast kneeling on the beast on the floor mastering him by some professional clutch. Then there rang out a sharp whistle and the curtain ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... saw Age coming slowly after him, to claw him in his clutch, as the old song says. "Please God," he thought, "by the time he comes up, I'll be ready to try a fall with him! O Thou eternally young, the years have no hold on thee; let them have none on thy child. I ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald
... no need to visit the purser. I met her face to face coming out of the saloon. If appearances were in any way to be trusted, the meeting was as much a shock to her as to me. She was wearing a thick veil, which partially obscured her features, but I saw her stop short, and clutch at a pillar as though for support, as she recognized me. If the amazement in her tone was counterfeited, she was ...
— The Great Secret • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the eyes "are altering—altered!" She knows not why, she never has understood this sudden, wondrous happening of her marriage, but the eyes to which she trusts are altering—altered—and what can she do? . . . With heartrending pathos, what she does is to clutch at his words to her, the music which had lifted her, and now perhaps will lift him too by its mere sound. "I love you, love" . . . but what does love mean? She knows not, and her "music" is but ignorant ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne
... fact about babies. I remember hearing on good authority that very young babies when moved are apt to clutch hold of anything, and I thought of your explanation; but your case during sleep is a much more interesting one. Very many thanks for the book, which I much wanted to see; it shall be sent back to-day, as from you, to ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin
... presence with him; and his flesh, breaking free from all restraint, rose up in rebellious desire. It was a slow agony of temptation, in which the weapons of faith fell, one by one, from his faltering hands, in which he lay inert in the clutch of passion, in which he beheld with horror his own ignominy, without having the courage to raise his little finger to free himself ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... beginners at a single-command monoplane school are permitted to fly only under the most favorable weather conditions. Even then, old Mother Earth, who is not kindly disposed toward those of her children who leave her so jauntily, would clutch us back to her bosom, whenever we gave her the slightest opportunity, with an embrace that was anything but tender. We were inclined to think rather highly of our own courage in defying her; and sometimes our vanity was increased by our moniteurs. After an exciting misadventure ...
— High Adventure - A Narrative of Air Fighting in France • James Norman Hall
... a lie,' he went on violently. 'It isn't passion at all, it is your WILL. It's your bullying will. You want to clutch things and have them in your power. You want to have things in your power. And why? Because you haven't got any real body, any dark sensual body of life. You have no sensuality. You have only your will and your conceit of ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... drifted toward each other, broadside on, and the breeze was so light that the Hattie was almost helpless; but the stranger was well handled; her huge paddle wheels, which up to this moment had hung motionless in the water, began to turn backward, and presently Marcy let go his desperate clutch upon the stay to which he was clinging, and drew a long breath of relief. Whatever else the cruiser might do to the Hattie she did not mean to send her to ...
— Marcy The Blockade Runner • Harry Castlemon
... heart-distracting angle and sallied down into the tesselated bowl of the park. Quite unconscious of her approach, until she was close upon him, her objective chatted fluently with the legless one, until she spoke quietly, almost in his ear. Then it was only by a clutch at the bench back that he saved himself from disaster on ...
— The Unspeakable Perk • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... was there. I found nothing to clutch or stay my fall, and a moment later so great was my speed that nothing could have ...
— Pellucidar • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... to follow, it was very certain that Wilkes would not stay. His great enemy had sworn his destruction, and would now take his choice, whether to do him to death himself, or to throw him into the clutch of the ferocious Hohenlo. "As for my own particular," said the counsellor, "the word is go, whosoever cometh or cometh not," and he announced to Walsingham his intention of departing without permission, should he not immediately receive it from England. ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... bellboys and janitors as the Date flows quietly toward us; we pass through the haggard perplexity of "Only Four Days More" when we suddenly realize it is too late to make our shopping the display of lucid affectionate reasoning we had contemplated, and clutch wildly at grotesque tokens—and then (sweetest of all) comes the quiet calmness of Christmas Eve. Then, while we decorate the tree or carry parcels of tissue paper and red ribbon to a carefully prepared ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley
... the remedy or palliative of which you speak. Name it, for goodness' sake! Like a drowning man, I will clutch it, if it be ...
— Home Scenes, and Home Influence - A Series of Tales and Sketches • T. S. Arthur
... need for the officers to cry out, "Hold on for your lives." We struggled to windward, grasping whatever we could clutch. More and more the ship heeled over; then there came another loud report, the mainmast went by the board, the fore-topmast fell over the starboard bow, and the next instant the mizzenmast was carried away half up from the deck, while the sound of repeated blows which came from the after-part ...
— Paddy Finn • W. H. G. Kingston
... after a bit, and suddenly there was Gramper at the roadside, breathless after his run across a corner of the east forty. Instantly he was in the clutch of a great fear; the loss had been discovered. He ...
— Bunker Bean • Harry Leon Wilson
... but tried my very utmost to see in him only the raving, irresponsible maniac. At the same time the thought flashed across my mind that he himself must also have been infected by Jewish ideas, that he should clutch at these weapons, more sounding than wounding. But I said nothing, walked up to him and from behind his hand attempted to grasp the ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden
... ninety-three senators and representatives from the eleven disloyal States, he said, eighty-five were soldiers in the armies of the rebellion, and their support of these "revolutionary measures is a fight for empire. It is a contrivance to clutch the national government. That we believe; that I believe."[1639] The President, by advising the country through his spirited veto messages of the desperate tactics invoked by the majority, added to ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... dinner of herbs—in the liquid form of absinthe," said my master with a clutch at Paragot. "How does it go? Better a dinner of herbs ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... was no imperial grandeur here! Only a feeble, sallow, tired, and sickly creature, whom a strong man could crush down with one blow of his fist. Rohan grew weak as he looked, and the long knife almost fell from his clutch. ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... as to the best method of "busting up" induced him to clutch his hair with both hands, and snort. It must not be supposed that our hero gave way to such rebellious feelings with impunity. On the contrary, his conscience pricked him to such an extent that it felt like an internal pin-cushion or hedgehog. While he was still holding fast to his locks in meditative ...
— Jarwin and Cuffy • R.M. Ballantyne
... all means! You won't be in the least in my way,' Sanin cried at once. Like every true Russian he was glad to clutch at any excuse that saved him from the necessity of doing ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
... my body rushed back to my heart—a deadly thrill ran through every limb—from shame and indignation, no doubt; my vision became obscure; it seemed as if my soul was leaving my body, and I fell forward fainting, and dragged her down to the bottom of the water in a mortal clutch. ...
— Monsieur, Madame and Bebe, Complete • Gustave Droz
... in spite of his many-sided experience of dissection-rooms, and morgues, and other ghastlinesses to which he had long since accustomed himself from principle, drew back at the sight—perhaps because he had come to this strange place to clutch the world-old mystery of the life-essence, and found himself, instead, confronted on its threshold by the ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 8 • Various
... fight to slip the clutch of the ship's suction, in the middle of a heavy sea he managed to get off his clothes, and set to swimming, whither he did not know, a ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel
... bent forward. His fingers tightened on the edge of the table with a clutch which drove the blood back under his nails. It was a hard fight to retain his self-control. His question broke from him in a ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck
... guidance of the boat. Indeed, I have seldom witnessed a more interesting sight than that of eighty or a hundred persons stationed aloft, straining their eyes to keep sight of a poor fellow who is struggling for his life, and all eagerly extending their hands towards him, as if they could clutch him from the waves. To see these hands drop again is inexpressibly painful, from its indicating that the unfortunate man is no longer distinguishable. One by one the arms fall down, reluctantly, as if it were ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... hot and singularly close; the higher current of air had subsided, and, looking up, a singular haze seemed to have taken its place between the treetops. Suddenly she heard a strange, rumbling sound; an odd giddiness overtook her, and she was obliged to clutch at a sapling to support herself; she laughed vacantly, though a little frightened, and looked vaguely towards the summit of the road; but the wagon had already disappeared. A strange feeling of nausea then overcame her; she spat out the leaves she had been ...
— Mr. Jack Hamlin's Mediation and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... succeeded by the St. Vitus' dance. He came down upon us sideways, his legs all in a tangle, and his right arm, bent and twisted, going round and round, as if in vain efforts to get into his pocket, his fingers spread out in impotent desire to clutch something. There was great danger that he would run into us, as he was like a steamer with only one side-wheel and no rudder. He came up puffing and blowing, and offered to show us Shakespeare's tomb. Shade of the past, to be accompanied to thy resting-place by such an ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... near making things "go" that evening, at least once more the glory of a full success slipped away from his eager hands, outstretched to clutch it; for when it came time for them to "shut up shop," as Thad said, and crawl into the two tents, he had not brought about his expected blaze, though his face ...
— The Boy Scouts in the Maine Woods - The New Test for the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter
... concussion of my skull against the bulkhead and by the avalanche of ponderous tomes that came crashing down upon me as the worthy medico's tier of hanging bookshelves yielded and came down by the run at my wild clutch as I stumbled over the ledge ...
— The Pirate Slaver - A Story of the West African Coast • Harry Collingwood
... With the precious metals that should fall to his share, says his biographer, he made haste to vow the raising of a force of five thousand horse and fifty thousand foot for the expulsion of the Saracens from Jerusalem. Nor is this the only instance in which even the noble among men have sought to clutch the grand opening futures, and wreathe the beauty of their promise about the consecrated graves of the past. "Servants of Sepulchres" is a title which even now, not individuals alone, but whole ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... Maud Mackenzie said, as if she meant to scold: "I never! Why, you forward thing! Now ain't you awful bold!" Just a glance he paused to give her, And his head was seen to clutch, Then he darted to the river, And he dived to beat the Dutch! While the wrathful maiden panted: "I don't think he was enchanted!" (And he really didn't look ...
— Grimm Tales Made Gay • Guy Wetmore Carryl
... Dave, and then he threw in the clutch on low gear, and the big touring car moved gently away, out of the grounds of the Wadsworth mansion and into the main highway leading from Crumville to Shady Glen Falls. ...
— Dave Porter and His Rivals - or, The Chums and Foes of Oak Hall • Edward Stratemeyer
... and a certain Albert, 'Count of Ascanien and Ballenstadt' (say, of ANHALT, in modern terms), whose mother was one of their daughters, came in for the northern part of their inheritance. He made a clutch at the Southern too, but did not long retain that. Being a man very swift and very sharp, at once nimble and strong, in the huge scramble that there then was,—Uncle Billung dead without heirs, a SALIC line of emperors ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol, II. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Of Brandenburg And The Hohenzollerns—928-1417 • Thomas Carlyle
... the clutch, and slipped in first speed. Then releasing the clutch pedal gradually she felt the car move slowly forward. A flush of pleasure came to her face; for, though she had several times performed this feat of late, ...
— The Outdoor Girls in a Motor Car - The Haunted Mansion of Shadow Valley • Laura Lee Hope
... stir of hoofs without. They thundered on the planks of the drawbridge and clattered on the stones of the courtyard. The thought of Cesare Borgia rose to my mind. But never did drowning man clutch at a more illusory straw. Cold reason quenched my hope at once. If the greatest imaginable success attended Mariani's journey, the Duke could not reach Cesena before midnight, and to that it wanted some ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini
... prison-door. There stood Wallace and his men, their weapons and armour covered with blood. De Valence, evading the clutch of Kirkpatrick, thrust his dagger ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various
... door stood the blind piper, with outstretched arms, and hands ready to clutch, the fingers curved like claws, his knees and haunches bent, leaning forward like a rampant beast prepared to spring. In his face was wrath, hatred, vengeance, disgust—an enmity of all ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... twists and dodges that are practised, allow for the fullest development of cultivated skill, as against mere brute force. The system is purely a scientific one. The fundamental rule is 'catch where you can,' only you must not clutch the hair ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... heart. Softly she closed the door, and placing the candle on the mantle-shelf, softly she knelt beside him, and softly touched his hand with hers. He did not stir nor utter a single word, but seemed to clutch at his thin locks more violently than before. Then she kneeling there, aloud, but with a low voice, with her thin hands clasped, uttered a prayer in which she asked her God to remove from her husband the bitterness of that hour. ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... a hand to Tobias, who, to take it, was forced to relinquish for a moment his clutch ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... labor, and the psalm of love. The times want scholars—scholars who shall shape The doubtful destinies of dubious years, And land the ark that bears our country's good Safe on some peaceful Ararat at last. The age wants heroes—heroes who shall dare To struggle in the solid ranks of truth; To clutch the monster error by the throat; To bear opinion to a loftier seat; To blot the era of oppression out, And lead a universal freedom on. And heaven wants souls—fresh and capacious souls; To taste its raptures, and expand, ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... unwonted courage and energy. Jurissa Caiduch himself, forgetting any cause of dislike he might have to Dansowich, joined heart and hand in the plans formed by the pirates for the deliverance of their leader. Every man in Segna, whether young or old, all who could wield a cimeter or clutch a knife, hastily armed themselves, and crowded into the fleet of long light skiffs in which they were wont to make their predatory excursions. Then breaking furiously through the line of Venetian ships, stationed between Veglia and the mainland, and which were totally unprepared ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... long. While he was holding her back, and she straining every nerve to get to the fire, he began to show sudden symptoms of distress. He gasped loudly, and cried, "Oh! oh! I'm choking!" and then his clutch relaxed. She tore herself from it, and, plunging ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... vanity of earthly labour; the deep sorrow over the passing of youth; the utter loss and annihilation of past time with all that it held of action and suffering; the bitterness of the fear of death, and the weariness of the clutch at life; such are among the thoughts of most frequent recurrence. In one view these are the commonplaces of literature; yet they are none the less the expression of ...
— Select Epigrams from the Greek Anthology • J. W. Mackail
... fought him vein by vein, Loosened his cold and creeping clutch, Driven him from her—twice and ...
— Nirvana Days • Cale Young Rice
... words. His right hand hung poised and moveless just above the butt of his gun; his whole posture was that of one in the midst of an action, suspended there, frozen to stone. They waited for that poised hand to drop, for the slender fingers to clutch the butt of the gun, for the convulsive jerk that would bring out the gleaming barrel, the explosion, the spurt of smoke, and Buck Daniels lurching forward to his ...
— The Night Horseman • Max Brand
... cabin somewhere on the other side of the world, caused a sudden return of yesterday's dejection. It rushed back upon her in a flood under which her heart declined into bottomless depths. She felt as if actually sinking into some dark abyss of loneliness and that she must clutch at her father and Daddy John to ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... a time watching the huge black shapes in the darkness under the gas-works. A shoal of coal barges lay indistinctly on the darkly shining mud and water below, and a colossal crane was perpetually hauling up coal into mysterious blacknesses above, and dropping the empty clutch back to the barges. Just one or two minute black featureless figures of men toiled amidst these monster shapes. They did not seem to be controlling them but only moving about among them. These gas-works have a big chimney that belches a lurid flame into the night, ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... heap and the ball settled into Carmine's arms. Turner leaped toward him, Carmine swayed aside and Turner went past. It was Clint who hurled himself at the quarter, wrapped eager arms about his knees and toppled him to earth so savagely that the pigskin bounded out of his clutch. There was a scramble for the ball, but Tyler, the second's right tackle, got it and reached the twenty-yard line before he ...
— Left Tackle Thayer • Ralph Henry Barbour
... said) when the winter changed the time of its appearance. The like might befall Markheim: the solid walls might become transparent and reveal his doings like those of bees in a glass hive; the stout planks might yield under his foot like quicksands and detain him in their clutch; aye, and there were soberer accidents that might destroy him: if, for instance, the house should fall and imprison him beside the body of his victim; or the house next door should fly on fire, and the firemen invade him from all sides. These things he feared; ...
— Short-Stories • Various
... Ellis himself was to windward, when Arden, in the pride of his newly-acquired accomplishment, as he was running forward on the lee-side, as he said, to take a swing on the shrouds, his foot slipped, he lost his balance, and before he could clutch a rope, over the slight bulwarks he went, head foremost into the water. Ernest was sitting on the same side of the little vessel. Quick as thought, before Ellis, who had been looking to windward, knew what had happened, or ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston
... intimidated by a blade of cold iron in a woman's hand; with a quick movement he seized her wrist in order to disarm her; but although Klea was forced to drop the knife she struggled with him to free herself from his clutch, and this contest between a man and a woman, who seemed to be of superior rank to that indicated by her very simple dress, seemed to most of the Cypriotes so undignified, so much out of place within the walls of a palace, that they pulled their comrade back from ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... provocation, he uplifted his stick, and struck a black-gowned boy a smart blow on the shoulders. The boy looked at him wofully and resentfully, but said nothing, nor can I imagine why the thing was done. In Tythebarne Street to-day I saw a woman suddenly assault a man, clutch at his hair, and cuff him about the ears. The man, who was of decent aspect enough, immediately took to his heels, full speed, and the woman ran after him, and, as far as I could discern the ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... The little fellow's lips quivered, but even at three some of the lessons of poverty had been learned. He surrendered the horse obediently, but Susan saw the little rough head go down tight against the man's collar, and saw the clutch of ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris
... another clutch at the creature, which evaded him and, with a rapid movement, wound the rope around his neck so tightly that he choked, and began to turn black in the face. Mr. Lawrence, who, though mortified by the sensation they were creating, could ...
— All Aboard - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... still watching shyly out of their brown, glossy, mouse-like eyes, to their extreme mystification saw the colour flood Damaris' face, saw her lips tremble and part as in prelude to happy speech. Then saw her grow very pale, and, turning away, clutch at the head of the alert little hound. Mrs. Cooper delivered herself of a quite audible whisper to the effect—"that Miss Damaris was took faint-like, as she feared." And Mary leaned forward over the front of the pew in quick anxiety. But our maiden's weakness was but passing. She straightened ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... him, and re-entering the concert-room, was greeted by a great clapping of hands, as if he had performed a deed of valor. But, notwithstanding the miserable vanity and impudence of the man, it had gone to Hester's heart to see him, with his low visage and puny form, in the mighty clutch of her father. That which would have made most despise the poor creature the more, his physical inferiority, made her pity him, even ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... the motor up a bit, glanced behind to see that the tonneau door was securely fastened, and then pulled the speed lever and threw in the clutch. The car started forward as smoothly as if Paul himself ...
— The Motor Girls • Margaret Penrose
... children are most often the food-offenders. Any number not only let small children eat continuously so that the car is filled with food odors, but occasional mothers have been known to let a child with smeary fingers clutch a nearby passenger by the dress or coat and seemingly think it cunning! Those who can afford it, usually take the drawing-room and keep the children in it. Those who are to travel in seats should plan diversions for them ahead of time; since it is unreasonable to expect little ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... could I imagine that we were travelling at that same terrific, impossible speed. And we were helpless—helpless in the clutch of—what? What power lay behind this band of light that ...
— The Floating Island of Madness • Jason Kirby
... will linger in the more polite and elegant circle of gamesters, but, after a while, their pathway will come to the fatal plunge. Finding themselves in the rapids, they will try to back out, and, hurled over the brink, they will clutch the side of the boat until their finger-nails, blood-tipped, will pierce the wood, and then, with white cheek and agonized stare, and the horrors of the lost soul lifting the very hair from the scalp, they will plunge down where no grappling ...
— The Abominations of Modern Society • Rev. T. De Witt Talmage
... advance your spark and open the throttle—that speeds her up. This is the spark and this the gas, here. Then you shove your shifting lever—see, here it is—over to the next speed. Remember that, any time you shift the gears, you'll have to pull the clutch. The machine has to gain headway on one speed before it ...
— The Power and the Glory • Grace MacGowan Cooke
... night and watched the work of months go up in flame and smoke. Nothing could be done to save the ship. Hewn from the hardiest trees in the forest, caulked and fortified to defy the most violent assaults of water, she was like paper in the clutch of flames. In the grey of early morn the stricken people slunk back to their cabins and gave up hope. For not only was their ship destroyed but the priceless tools and implements with which she had been built were gone as well. It was the double catastrophe that took the life, ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon
... but then, ye don't count all the folks an' happenin's that pass ye in yer wakin' hours. But when a dream, or a person, or an idee comes along, as means a comfort or a strengthener, I take it that it is a sort o' duty t' clutch it, an' make it real. When ye ain't got nothin' better, dreams is powerful upliftin' at times. Gum!" David drew his shoulders up and plunged his hands in his pockets, as if about to ...
— Janet of the Dunes • Harriet T. Comstock
... judgment will seek 1280 With host of angels. Every one there Of speech-bearing men the truth shall hear Of every deed through mouth of the Judge, And likewise of words the penalty pay Of all that with folly were spoken before, 1285 Of daring thoughts. Then parts into three Into clutch of fire each one of folk, Of those that have dwelt in course of time Upon the broad earth. The righteous shall be Upmost-in flame, host of the blessed, 1290 Crowd eager for glory, as they may bear it, And without torment easily suffer, ...
— Elene; Judith; Athelstan, or the Fight at Brunanburh; Byrhtnoth, or the Fight at Maldon; and the Dream of the Rood • Anonymous
... the fort appeared to be silent and the big galleons lay apparently helpless in the face of the valiant enemy. Raleigh moved on, but, as he was about to clutch his splendid prize, it escaped him, for the Spaniards—finding that they would be captured—made haste to run the Saint Philip, and several of her sister ...
— Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea • Charles H. L. Johnston
... sinking!" shouted Mayo. He fastened a heavy clutch upon Bradish's shoulders. "There's no time to argue ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... also would probably seize hold of such a neighbour as a scapegoat, in case of any deficiency in the number of hares and pheasants; and then their great enemy, Mr. Poulton, might avail himself of some technical deficiency to bring Mrs. King within the clutch of a surcharge. There might not always be an oversight in that Shylock's bond, nor a wise judge, young or old, to detect it if there were. So that, upon due consideration, my father (determined, of course, to make a proper ...
— The Widow's Dog • Mary Russell Mitford
... out his clutch and pausing at the curb; and as I grabbed my suit-case and sprang to the seat beside him, he let the clutch in again and we were off. "No time to lose," he added, as he changed into high, ...
— The Gloved Hand • Burton E. Stevenson
... "All the better," said he firmly. "I thought he was dead. His blood flows; then I will save him. Don't clutch me so, Josephine; don't cling to me like that. Now is the time to show your breed: not turn sick at the sight of a little blood, like that foolish creature, but help me ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade
... screams that he doesn't want to be thrown into the water. I can see him clinging to his father for protection, and finding that heart hard and unpitying. I can see his fingernails whiten with his clutch on anything that gives a hand-hold. His father strips off his grip, at first with boisterous laughter, and then with hot anger at the little fool. He calls him a cry-baby, and slaps his mouth for him, to stop his noise. The little ...
— Back Home • Eugene Wood
... him! Always I'd think him after me. There would be no sleep for me. I'd think him after me—you know how it is in a dream, when you are like a ghost—all limp in the limbs, but trying to run! It would be like that, if I fled from him—always expecting him to clutch me from behind!... My God, if he would only make me ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort
... enlarging upon the plates that the automatic focusing devices could scarcely function rapidly enough to keep them in place. Cleveland flinched involuntarily and seized his arm-rests in a spasmodic clutch as he watched this, the first inertialess space-approach; and even Rodebush, who knew better than anyone else what to expect, held his breath and swallowed hard at the unbelievable rate at which the ...
— Triplanetary • Edward Elmer Smith
... vain. Finally, one of them, losing all patience, pricked him with his bayonet on the lower part of the ribs exposed by the raising of the jacket as he fell. I was now near enough to act, and with a sudden clutch I pulled the guardsman away, whirled him around, and stood in his place. As I was stooping over the Turk he raised himself slowly, doubtless aroused by the pain of the puncture, and turned on me a most beseeching look, which changed ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 5 • Various
... rumble of guns and started in a hurry after the column. Sergeant Merchant's bicycle—our spare, a Rudge—burnt out its clutch, and we left it in exchange for some pears at a cottage with a delicious garden in Champbreton. Doue was a couple of ...
— Adventures of a Despatch Rider • W. H. L. Watson
... closer and sniffed, and came yet closer, till its nose touched the strange object which had not been there when darkness fell. Then Hitchcock, for it was Hitchcock, upreared suddenly, shooting an unmittened hand out to the brute's shaggy throat. And the dog knew its death in that clutch, and when the man moved on, was left broken-necked under the stars. In this manner Hitchcock made the chief's lodge. For long he lay in the snow without, listening to the voices of the occupants and striving to locate ...
— The God of His Fathers • Jack London
... or rather blotches, chiefly towards the big end, on a pale greenish-white ground, and is rather a handsome egg; the other is a pale green egg with faint brown markings, which are confined almost entirely to the obtuse end. I have another clutch of eggs taken at Budaon in 1865, which presents an intermediate variety between the above two extremes; these are profusely blotched with ...
— The Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds, Volume 1 • Allan O. Hume
... poor, the print's infernal. But what of that, when, week by week, High at the sight of it hope rises? What in my Magazine I seek Is just—a medium for Prizes! I can't be bothered to read much, I like my literature in snippets. My hope is, with good luck, to clutch Villas, gold watches, sable tippets. A coupon and some weekly pence Give me a chance of an annuity. Oh, the excitement is intense! I read with ardent assiduity, Not what the poor ink-spillers say In sparkling "par," or essay solemn; No, what I read, with triumph gay Or hope deferred, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, August 30, 1890. • Various
... last. It was the expiring tribute of allegiance to the chief he adored. The blood spouted in cataracts from his half-closed wounds, a convulsive spasm worked through his frame, his eyes rolled fearfully, as his outstretched hands seemed striving to clutch some object before them, and he was dead. Fresh arrivals of wounded continued to pour in; and now I thought I could detect at intervals the distant noise of a cannonade. The wind, however, was from the southward, and the sounds were too ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... by, and then with a jerk I had my trout, my thumb and forefinger deep under his gills; brought down my other clutch upon him and, lifting, flung him back over me among the meadow grass, my posture being such that I could neither hold him struggling nor recover my own balance save by rolling sideways over on my shoulder-pin; which I did, and, running to him where he gleamed and doubled, flipping the ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... fussing about a correspondence-file that morning, had forgotten that he was much married and had peered at the V. Una knew it, and the sordidness of that curiosity so embarrassed her that she stopped typing to clutch at the throat of her own high-necked blouse, her heart throbbing. She wanted to run away. She had a vague desire to "help" Bessie, who purred at poor, good Mr. Wilkins and winked at Una and chewed gum enjoyably, ...
— The Job - An American Novel • Sinclair Lewis
... map. Now, as we round the curve you see it. That is the famous building that saved so many lives—the only one left in the great barren waste of sand. You know the water formed an eddy about it, and thus, as house after house floated and circled about it men and women would clutch the roof and climb upon it. The water reached half way to the ceiling on the second floor on ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... flash, Rounders seized the magic wand, burst open the little door, and made a lunge at the brute on top of the fallen man. The men with the spears attacked him from behind, and as the animal turned for a moment to face them, Rounders took advantage of it to clutch Brinton, drag him to the door, and ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various
... its windows turn inward, its music sings to itself. Tossed City sinners go in and out, and pass, and penetrate, but still the music dreams, and still the dim gold blinks above their heads. A muffled God walks the aisles, and you, in the bristling wilderness of chairs, can clutch at His skirts and never see His eyes. Nothing comes forward from that altar to meet you. It is as if He walked talking to Himself, and as if even His speech were ...
— This Is the End • Stella Benson
... air, Taking a thousand strange, fantastic forms; And every form is lit with burning eyes, Which pierce me through and through like fiery arrows! The dim walls grow unsteady, and I seem To stand upon a reeling deck! Hold, hold! A hundred crags are toppling overhead. I faint, I sink—now, let me clutch that limb— Oh, devil! It breaks to ashes in my grasp! What ghost is that which beckons through the mist? The duke! the duke! and bleeding at the breast! Whose dagger ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... finger to the bone, the man roared with laughter, but John Broom did not draw his hand away. He kept it still at the bird's beak, and with the other he gently scratched him under the crest and wings. And when the white cockatoo began to stretch out his eight long toes, as cats clutch with their claws from pleasure, and chuckled, and sighed, and bit softly without hurting, and laid his head against the bars till his snow and sulphur feathers touched John Broom's black locks, the man ...
— Tales from Many Sources - Vol. V • Various
... assault that, strong man as Greatorix was, he had not the least chance of resistance. He reeled at the sudden constriction of his throat by hands that hardly seemed human, so wide was their clutch, so terrible the stringency of their grasp. He struck wildly at his assailant, but, lying on his back with the biting and strangling thing above him, his arms only met on one another in vain blows. He felt the teeth of a great beast meet in his throat, and in the sudden ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... was to get to Ellen and pour out her troubles, and she was quite silent while she jumped ashore, although the wavering boat made her clutch Faith's ...
— Jewel's Story Book • Clara Louise Burnham
... to realize at once that it had been fooled by this human creature within its clutch, and with another growl, louder, fiercer and more startling than any yet, it prepared to spring on ...
— Jack North's Treasure Hunt - Daring Adventures in South America • Roy Rockwood
... shades and leafy wings; Through all the courts of sense applying, With sights, and sounds, and odorous sighing, To the world-wearied soul of man, The gentle universal Pan— As now we must: the roots around, Of forests clutch a certain sound Of weary feet; go, sisters, out: ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... afternoon?" inquired Mr. Emerson, as he threw in the clutch and started toward the outskirts of Rosemont where he had land enough to allow him ...
— Ethel Morton's Holidays • Mabell S. C. Smith |
